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The assessment of shift in cropping pattern is crucial for a good insight into the agricultural development of a region. The present study focused on the changes in the cropping pattern and the extent of crop diversification in Kerala, India. The results of the study revealed that the share of food crops to the gross cropped area substantially declined from 56.85% in TE 1987-88 to 40.73% in TE 2019-20, whereas the share of non-food crops increased remarkably from 43.14% in TE 1987-88 to 59.29% in TE 2019-20. The extent of crop diversification was higher in Idukki district, while crop specialization was prominent in Kozhikode district. Labour unavailability, high labour wage rates and climate variability were identified as the major constraints faced by the respondents in the study areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, the rice paddy is cultivated as one or two crops per year using synthetic fertilizers and organic manures. Although the application of agrochemicals enhances the soil's heavy metals, the influence of cultivation patterns on the metal accumulation in rice paddy soil is not documented. Such information could provide a basis for controlling heavy metals in rice paddy soil. Therefore, the investigation was carried out to assess the influence of cultivation patterns on heavy metal accumulation. The study was made during the cultivation and noncultivation periods of single and double cropping patterns. The heavy metals viz. Zn, Cu, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cr, and Pb were analyzed in soil after acid extraction using AAS. The result revealed that, in both cropping patterns, the heavy metals content was high during the noncultivation period compared to cultivation period, and only Cu and Pb showed significant differences between the periods (Single cropping F1,25 = 7.291, p = 0.012 and F1,25 = 7.820, p = 0.010; double cropping F1,25 = 9.242, p = 0.005 and F1,25 = 7.746, p = 0.010 respectively). Compared to single cropping, Zn, Cu, Mn, and Pb contents were high in double cropping. The Mn, Ni, and Cr content showed significant differences between the cropping pattern (Mn: F1,55 = 18.20, p = 0.0001; Ni: F1,55 = 5.764, p = 0.020; Cr: F1,55 = 4.283, p = 0.043). The study indicates that the difference in the heavy metal content of the rice paddy soils is attributed to managerial and cultivation practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has been one of the largest producers of oilseeds in the world. Correspondingly, the oilseed sector occupies an important position in the agricultural economy of the country. Oilseeds, especially edible oilseeds, have been an integral part of the cropping system in India till the beginning of monoculture triggered by the implementation of a new agriculture strategy since 1960s. This paper evaluates the cropping pattern of oilseed diversity in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan at district level. This paper also highlights the development programmes launched by state and central governments to promote oilseeds production in dry region of the state. Many statistical techniques are used, for instance, Herfindahl Index, Entropy Index, and Composite Entropy Index, to examine the diversification and specialization in oilseeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large-scale land transformation after the green revolution (modernization of Agriculture with the consumptive use of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, fertilizers and pesticides complemented with irrigation facilities to increase the food production of India during the 1960s) has altered the hydrological cycle and water balance in the semi-arid region of southern Haryana. In this context, this paper analyzes the impact of land-use/cover changes and intensive agricultural practices on the groundwater status in the area from 1980 to 2015. Supervised classification (maximum likelihood technique) has been used to perform change detection, whilst the Groundwater Development Index and change detection method have been used for the computation of groundwater storage change. The result indicates that the area under crops has decreased from 602611 km2 to 591589 km2, while an unprecedented growth of (97.80%) has been witnessed in the built-up area in all these years. The water table has fallen from 9.27mbgl (meters below ground level) in 1980 to 25.58 mbgl in 2015, at the rate of 0.4m per year as the water-efficient crops such as wheat, sugarcane, and paddy have been replaced by less water-consuming crops such as mustered, jowar, bajra, maize, and gram. Groundwater development has exceeded 100% of the natural replenishment level in the Gurgaon and Palwal districts and lies in the 'Over-exploited' category. Hence, it is needed to monitor the land use/cover changes and groundwater withdrawals and increase the body of quantitative evidence to check the pressure of the growing human population and climate change on water resources in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the declining land resources over the past few decades, the intensification of land uses has played a significant role in balancing the ever-increasing demand for food in developing nations such as India. To optimize agricultural land uses, one of the crucial indicators is cropping intensity, which measures the number of times a single parcel of land is farmed. Therefore, it is imperative to create a timely and accurate cropping intensity map so that landowners and agricultural planners can use it to determine the best course of action for the present and for the future. In the present study, we have developed an algorithm on Google Earth Engine (GEE) to depict cropping patterns and further fused it with a GIS environment to depict cropping intensity in the arid western plain zone of Rajasthan, India. A high-resolution multi-temporal harmonized product of the Sentinel-2 dataset was incorporated for depicting the growth cycle of crops for the year 2020–2021 using the greenest pixel composites. Kharif and Rabi accounted for 73.44% and 26.56% of the total cultivated area, respectively. Only 7.42% was under the double-cropped area to the total cultivated area. The overall accuracy of the classified image was 90%. For the Kharif crop, the accuracy was 95%, while for Rabi and the double-cropped region, the accuracy was 88%, with a kappa coefficient of 0.784. The present study was able to depict the seasonal plantation system in arid arable land with higher accuracy. The proposed work can be used to monitor cropping patterns and cost-effectively show cropping intensities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cultivation of health fruits of banana provides employment from the period of planting to marketing. There is a steady demand for fruits and leaves in markets. Banana growers are assured of income from banana cultivation from the 90th day of planting the daughter suckers produce leaves. Further the planting period and the harvesting period can be adjusted to get improved prices for the products and steady income through out the year. The study area of the village is solely depended on agriculture so a survey has been undertaken to study the process of cultivation of banana and the sale of the product to the agricultural marketing. However the present study would be appropriate to take up the study of profit and loss analysis of banana cultivation in this village concerned and make the research work a worthwhile and a relevant one. The study reveals that living conditions of the agricultural family is satisfactory in this village. Small size of landholding is one of the reason for low level of agricultural output and also reduces the profit of the farmer because of the cultivation cost is more. So that the banana cultivation is more profitable than other crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate monitoring of croplands helps in making decisions (for insurance claims, crop management and contingency plans) at the macro-level, especially in drylands where variability in cropping is very high owing to erratic weather conditions. Dryland cereals and grain legumes are key to ensuring the food and nutritional security of a large number of vulnerable populations living in the drylands. Reliable information on area cultivated to such crops forms part of the national accounting of food production and supply in many Asian countries, many of which are employing remote sensing tools to improve the accuracy of assessments of cultivated areas. This paper assesses the capabilities and limitations of mapping cultivated areas in the Rabi (winter) season and corresponding cropping patterns in three districts characterized by small-plot agriculture. The study used Sentinel-2 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 15-day time-series at 10 m resolution by employing a Spectral Matching Technique (SMT) approach. The use of SMT is based on the well-studied relationship between temporal NDVI signatures and crop phenology. The rabi season in India, dominated by non-rainy days, is best suited for the application of this method, as persistent cloud cover will hamper the availability of images necessary to generate clearly differentiating temporal signatures. Our study showed that the temporal signatures of wheat, chickpea and mustard are easily distinguishable, enabling an overall accuracy of 84%, with wheat and mustard achieving 86% and 94% accuracies, respectively. The most significant misclassifications were in irrigated areas for mustard and wheat, in small-plot mustard fields covered by trees and in fragmented chickpea areas. A comparison of district-wise national crop statistics and those obtained from this study revealed a correlation of 96%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tank systems are essential for the agricultural growth and the livelihood of rural populations in India. Comprehending the multiple benefits from these traditional systems, tank rehabilitation has been one of the policy significances at the state level. The study was undertaken with the objective of assessing the impact of tank rehabilitation on cropped area, cropping pattern change, cost returns and income of farmers in a selected study village of south Tamil Nadu. The study was conducted on the basis of primary data obtained from 102 sample farmers belonging to “Pelasur” village of Thiruvannamalai district in south Tamil Nadu using a stratified sampling method. There was a significant difference in the cropped area, cropping intensity and irrigation intensity among the farmers before and after tank rehabilitation. It is found that there is an increase of 41.02 ha cultivated area and an increase in the net amount of Rs. 7,99,945. Many farmers shifted from paddy to sugarcane (cash crops) cultivation due to the availability of excess surface water in the tank and improved water table in their wells. Cropping intensity has been increased to 26% in the post-rehabilitation period. Thus, investment in tank rehabilitation shows a positive implication on marginal farmers and landless labours. Using SPSS, a paired-sample t-test is applied for analysing data collected from respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous demand of groundwater for irrigation in the agricultural sector has shown remarkable development of groundwater resources in Haryana. Small farmers with limited resources cannot install deep tube wells and therefore have to buy groundwater from large farmers for irrigation. These groundwater irrigation markets have emerged as robust and leading irrigation institutions. Their prevalence supports about 15% of the total irrigated area. Amongst the different size of land ownership, the small farmers irrigate nearly 44% of their cultivated land with purchased water from the neighboring large farmers. The cropping intensity achieved by groundwater buyers is far higher than the sellers. However, on an average each seller supports 1.6 buyers, 6.1 ha of land and 34% of the buyer's land. Generally, the sellers exploit groundwater buyers in groundwater transactions. The sellers follow the principle of profit maximization and do not negotiate with buyers on groundwater irrigation markets norms. The major objective of this study is to highlight the patterns and practices of groundwater irrigation markets in Haryana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing cropping pattern is a potentially effective lever to cope with unreliable water resources, but given the multiple factors driving crop choices, assessing if farmers actually use it specifically for this objective remains difficult. We aimed at analyzing whether and how farmers choose crop categories with different water requirements to cope with limited water resources in peninsular India. We monitored over a 10 year period crop choices, weather, and groundwater level for the three cropping seasons in 205 irrigable farms in the Berambadi watershed, in southern India. We categorized crops according to their seasonal water requirement. We built farm types based of Sequence Analysis and Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering of crop category sequences over 10 years for each cropping season. For each type, we correlated the variation in crop category choices to variations in rainfall and groundwater availability, to identify tactical adaptations. Finally, we grouped the crop category choices of the three seasons to identify the main strategic pathways followed by farmers. Sequence analysis of crop category choices revealed different types of crop category sequences, reflecting farmers' different strategies, which were not significantly linked with groundwater availability. We identified five main pathways across the three cropping seasons, including combining long-cycle irrigated crop and other crop categories, specializing in short-cycle irrigated crops over two or three seasons, specializing in rainfed crops or abandoning agriculture. Within each type, correlations between variation in water availability and crop categories highlighted specific tactical adaptations. The opportunity for farmers to choose their crops among a variety of species encompassing a large range of water requirements allows them to base their system resilience on a large diversity of strategies and tactics. This suggests that some farmers empirically estimate the water balance of their cropping systems at seasonal scale to take tactical decisions. Providing them with science-based tools to refine this estimation could therefore improve their decision-making. This also implies that modelling farmer decisions must account for their diversity. Maintaining or increasing the capacity of farmers to cultivate a broad range of crops with different seasonal water requirements is important for farming system resilience, and should therefore be part of the agenda of policy makers for agricultural or environmental regulations. [Display omitted] • Changing crop choice is a potentially effective lever to cope with unreliable rainfall and groundwater resources. • Using a 10-y time series on 205 farms we explored if water requirement was a primary factor driving crop choice. • Sequence Analysis of cropping patterns allowed identifying farmers' strategies and tactics. • We found five strategies, independent of groundwater availability, but associated with specific tactical adaptations. • Farmers' capacity to grow a large variety of crops is pivotal for farming system resilience in water-limited contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing water scarcity places considerable importance on precise quantification of water consumption. The concepts of virtual water content (VWC) and water footprint (WF) are increasingly being used to analyse the water consumption and to support optimal crop and water management practices at different spatial scales. In the present study, the blue, green and grey VWC of crops and WF of crop production within the Gomti river basin (GRB) in India were assessed for irrigated and rainfed conditions. Total WF is the sum of blue, green and grey WFs within the basin. Blue WF is the amount of surface or groundwater used in crop evapotranspiration (ETc), green WF refers to amount of rain water use in ETc, and the grey water use is the volume of freshwater that is required to assimilate the agricultural pollutant load to acceptable levels. On the basis of variability in ETc, the GRB was divided into four spatial resolution units (SRUs). A linear programming model was developed to optimize the area under each crop in different SRUs with the objective function of minimizing the blue WF within the GRB. The findings show that annual WF of crop production within the GRB was 12,196 Mm, of which 89% was from irrigated agriculture. Wheat, paddy and sugarcane shared 94% of the total WF of crop production within the basin. Share of blue and green WFs in total WF of the basin was 48 and 46%, respectively. There was considerable variation in VWC of crops in different SRUs. The VWC-based optimal allocation of crops would result in savings of 196 Mm in blue WF per year. Considering the large WF of crop production, optimizing the crop planting pattern is the key to achieve more sustainable water use within the basin. The approach suggested in this study will be useful in devising informed policy decisions related to crop choices and their cultivation areas so as to ensure efficient use of water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive variability in current climatic conditions necessitates the need for optimal planning of water resources to manage socio-economic and environmental requirements efficiently. The optimal allocation of surface water and groundwater is essential to maximize crop net return due to uncertainty in seasonal rainfall, groundwater, and surface water availability in each region. This study demonstrated a multi-objective model to maximize the crop net return and efficient management of water resources. The multi-objective model comprised three objective functions maximizing the crop net return, minimizing the water deficit, and maximizing the aquifer recharge. The model's practicability was analyzed through the case study of the Pennar-Palar-Cauvery link canal command in India. Three meta-heuristic approaches, particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), and marine predators algorithm (MPA), were employed to solve the presented model. And their performance was evaluated using hypervolume and coverage metrics, indicating MPA's superiority in obtaining well-distributed Pareto-optimal solutions. Thus, decision-makers can choose the best feasible solution based on current resource availability and preferences. The model was executed considering different cropping area deviations (5–25%) in the existing cropping pattern and allowance of groundwater mining from 0% to 70%. The obtained cropping pattern utilizing MPA at 25% cropping deviation achieved an increased net return of 1327.05 million INR. • A multi-objective optimization model was developed for the conjunctive use of water resources. • The sustainable allocation of water resources was evaluated using three approaches. • Particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), and marine predators algorithm (MPA) were used. • The MPA was superior in achieving well-distributed Pareto optimal solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the state of Punjab, India available water resources are inadequate to meet the irrigation needs of the crops. Optimal irrigation scheduling includes allocation of limited water supply to several crops so, as to maximize the net benefits and reduce the stress of the crops during its growing season. Dynamic programming technique of optimization has been adopted for seasonal allocation of water for multiple crops (Wheat, Barley, Mustard and Gram). The stochastic nature of canal water releases of Golewala distributary for 20 years (1982-2001) was estimated by gamma distribution. Based on this expected values of canal water releases were computed as 3766.41, 4138.76, 4422.2, 4674.5 and 4918.95 hectare - meter (ha-m) corresponding to 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% risk levels of canal water releases in the distributary. The conjunctive use of canal water along with bad quality ground water offers sustainable water allocation option based on water production function. The seasonal allocation is done corresponding to different combinations of canal water and ground water at different risk levels of canal water. The seasonal water has been further redistributed on weekly basis by making use of dated water production functions and soil water balance equation. The potential evapotranspiration was estimated by Penman Montieth method and actual evapotranspiration was estimated on the basis of soil moisture balance in the study area. Economic co-efficient, crop areas, and crops growth stage stress effects are included in the mathematical formulation at both levels. The weekly allocation takes into account the initial moisture content along with limitations in terms of channel capacity, available water supply and soil storage capacity. The allocation of water was 97% and 3% for wheat and mustard crop respectively. Model did not allocate water to barley and gram crops in the catchment area. The seasonal water was redistributed on weekly basis with different risk levels of potential evapotranspiration. The weekly allocation of water varied from 0 - 22.5 mm for 10% risk level of evapotranspiration. The risk level of evapotranspiration did not much affect the allocation and varied from 278.08- 79.01 for full season. The net returns for 10% and 50% risk levels of canal water and 30% ground water were 8.51% and 32.42% higher than existing net returns observed in the command area. The increase in the ground water amount beyond 30% tends to have an adverse effect on the yield of the crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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India after adopting Green Revolution technology increased its food grain production and has acquired the status of sufficient in the category of basic foods. But Green Revolution can be considered responsible for favouring wheat and rice production alone leaving behind pulses, coarse cereals and small millets in terms of area and production. Present study mainly focuses on the unbalanced production of the food grains. It also provides clue to factors behind uneven agricultural growth and our work deals with pulses, coarse cereals and small millets which have been neglected by the Green Revolution. Hence, effort has been made to examine the effect of Green revolution on the cropping pattern in order to assess the production performance of pulses, coarse cereals so fine cereals and to suggest some remedial measures to cope up with the imbalances within the food grain basket in Central Uttar Pradesh. Our study concludes that the area, production and yield are continuously decreasing for pulses, coarse cereals and small millets during the study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The north eastern part of the state is considered agriculturally more advance as compared to the south western part. The physical conditions in this semi-arid part of the state are favorable to grow two or more crops in an agriculture year . The study was conducted at village Bazida Jattan located at 29°36'46'' north latitude and 78°.58'.1" east longitude in district Karnal to asses the changing land use and cropping pattern. It is a representative sample of Karnal and shares agricultural characteristics and problems encountered in this area. In order to maximize their farm return, the farmers prefer rice-wheat cropping pattern. This has surpassed the other crops in terms of area, production and productivity but the land of this part is now cultivated for various purposes such as, vegetables, pulses, fodder and staple food in order to get a maximum return from per unit area. Farmers discontinued cultivation of maize, gram, cotton, and bajra crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was the common observation that area under BT cotton was increasing in the recent past. In order to quantify the impact of BT cotton on the existing cropping pattern, this study was conducted. A sample of 300 respondents comprising of small, medium and large category of the farmers was taken from the districts of Vehari, Multan, Bahawalpur (Cotton zone) and Jhang, TTS, Faisalabad (Central Zone). Data pertained to the two consecutive years i.e. 2008-09 and 2009-10. Empirical results revealed that BT cotton area was increasing firstly at the expense of wheat area and sugarcane area secondly. In cotton zone 8.15% and in the central zone 6.5% wheat area undergone to BT cotton. Similarly, 4.5% area of sugar cane from cotton zone and 1.5% in central zone shifted to BT cotton. Out of the total sampled farmers, 70% wheat growers and 28% sugarcane growers showed their interest to shift some areas from their respective crops to BT cotton. Thus, there were the chances that textile sector will groom but in future, it will create food insecurity problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decision support system for canal water releases (CWREDSS) was developed to provide demand-based optimal canal water releases for reducing the gap between canal supplies and demands for increasing the water-use efficiency in canal command areas. The developed decision support system (DSS) was evaluated under different situations of the command area of Guvvalagudem major distributary of the Nagarjunasagar Left Canal, Andhra Pradesh, India, as a case study. Results indicate that the CWREDSS is capable of developing releases under different scenarios of varying cropping patterns, groundwater use situations and different rainfall probability levels of the study area, and reduced the gap between demands and supplies considerably. DSS provides suggestions/ decisions under different situations of water deficit/surplus. CWREDSS will help irrigation engineers, agronomists and agro-meteorologists in the planning, operation and management of irrigation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Himachal Pradesh is one of the well-managed states in Western Himalayan region of India. Agriculture, horticulture and forestry are the main stay of its economy. More recently, fast economic, technological and institutional changes have affected the dynamics of land use that needs to be analyzed in a holistic way by incorporating constraints characteristic of hilly regions at micro watershed level with relatively homogenous conditions. Analysis of land use dynamics of Chabri watershed by using percentages and tables over the period 1970-2004 represents such an effort, Although the area under forests and other land uses remained stable during the period of analysis, more interesting changes occurred in cropping pattern with introduction of flower cultivation at the expense of area under maize and wheat crops. Declining land-man and land-livestock ratios are also observed. Best promise for sustainable use of land and raising per capita incomes lies in developing off-farm employment, intensive farming and scientific management of forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortages of surface water supplies necessitate development of groundwater in many canal commands. Groundwater can be used optimally in conjunction with surface supplies in a conjunctive use system. In the present study potential and feasibility of conjunctive use planning for one of the proposed link canal, Krishna (Nagarjunasagar)–Pennar (Somasila) canal, under peninsular rivers development as a part of India''s ambitious river linking program, has been explored. This link canal has been proposed considering only surface water supplies, neglecting the groundwater potential. Further, water demand and available water resources of the area are evaluated considering both the surface and groundwater resources. A simple economic-engineering optimization model is presented, to explore the potential of conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources using linear programming with various hydrological and management constraints, and to arrive at an optimal cropping pattern for optimal use of water resources for maximization of net benefits. The LINDO 6.1, optimization package has been used to arrive at optimal allocation plan of surface water and groundwater. The results substantiated that conjunctive use planning is beneficial and feasible for the proposed canal command. A considerable quantity of surface water (i.e. 43,189ham) can be saved for the other needy area as a part of inter-basin water transfer by implementing the proposed conjunctive use of surface and groundwater. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present paper demonstrates the applicability of population based search optimization method, namely, Differential Evolution (DE) to a case study of Mahi Bajaj Sagar Project (MBSP), India. Ten different strategies of DE are employed to assess the ability of DE for solving higher dimensional problems as an alternative methodology for irrigation planning. The parameters considered in DE are population size, crossover constant and weighting factor. Linear Programming (LP) is utilized as a comparative approach to assess the ability of DE. Comparison of results of LP and the 10 DE strategies for the given parameters indicated that both the results are comparable even for high dimensional problems. Extensive sensitivity analysis studies, performed for 3,600 combinations of above parameters for the 10 DE strategies suggested that DE/rand-to-best/1/bin strategy is the best strategy giving maximum benefits taking minimum CPU time. It is concluded that DE can be utilized for efficient planning of any irrigation system with suitable modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study deals with the application of Genetic Algorithms (GA) for irrigation planning. The GA technique is used to evolve efficient cropping pattern for maximizing benefits for an irrigation project in India. Constraints include continuity equation, land and water requirements, crop diversification and restrictions on storage. Penalty function approach is used to convert constrained problem into an unconstrained one. For fixing GA parameters the model is run for various values of population, generations, cross over and mutation probabilities. It is found that the appropriate parameters for number of generations, population size, crossover probability, and mutation probability are 200, 50, 0.6 and 0.01 respectively for the present study. Results obtained by GA are compared with Linear Programming solution and found to be reasonably close. GA is found to be an effective optimization tool for irrigation planning and the results obtained can be utilized for efficient planning of any irrigation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in the human population, urbanization, industrialization, infrastructural development, and current agricultural practices acts as major factors leading to the decline of the groundwater table in the region. The present study analyzes the noticeable effect of anthropogenic pressure on the groundwater table in the Bist-Doab region in Punjab, India, from 1996 to 2016. Statistical techniques, viz., Mann-Kendall Z statistics and Sen's slope, were used to estimate the water table decline in the area. The results indicate that there was a slight increase in the groundwater table in the Kandi belt of Siwalik foothills and south-western parts of the region. In the rest of the areas, a significant declining trend was observed in the groundwater table. The decline in the water table ranged from 56 to 149 cm per year in the pre- and post-monsoon seasons due to increasing in rice cultivated area, which is an alarming situation in the aquifer system of the region. Hence, to reduce the further decline of the groundwater table, water management practices need to be encouraged in the region. There is requiring immediate attention to change the present land-use/cover practices and to grow less water-consuming crops instead of high water-consuming crops to reduce the pressure on groundwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]